In October 2025, the Government announced that bursaries would in 2026-27 be reduced, and in art and design's case, removed.
Drawing together subject associations, on Friday 20 February, Cerys Turner reported in TES on the implications of these cuts. The teacher training targets for our subject appears to holding up (compared to last year), but these targets do not reflect the full impact on our trainees and our subject.
In the report, Michele Gregson CEO and general secretary of NSEAD said: “I know of cases where teacher trainees are training in [design and technology] to get the £20,000 bursary, but then becoming art teachers. It’s destabilising subject specialisms.
“It’s quite humiliating for an art and design student, who receives nothing to train, to sit next to a student who is getting a £29,000 bursary.”
“There is a hierarchy in the bursaries system - it’s demoralising.”
Addressing today's subject inequities and loan-on-loan generation, Gregson also says:
'Anyone leaving university and thinking about their career options has every reason to be concerned in 2026. The burden of student loan repayments is becoming a national scandal. Usurious repayment terms hit those who start of with the least hardest. And that is especially true for those who have taken a creative arts pathway. We know that money isn't everything – there are so many other reasons why people opt for a creative career – but the truth is, young people are having to make hard choices. Graduate earnings in the arts mature later, and the reality for many is a constant hustle, trying to get by as a freelancer or sole trader.
'Working in education is an attractive choice. Or it should be.
'For those wishing to train to teach art and design, the inequality continues. Since training bursaries were first introduced in the late 80s, art and design teachers have only had access to a bursary three times. After years of hard campaigning (thank you National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) ) a bursary at the lowest level was first offered in 2020. Then it was taken away. Then re-instated. Then taken away again this year. The impact on morale is enormous – this sends a clear message to would be and practising teachers: the arts don't count. And, only those that have the means to support themselves need apply.
'This government recognise the essential contribution that the arts make to our economic and civic well-being. They have made a strong commitment to arts education. But unless they create a level and fair system for all teachers these promises will be nothing more than empty rhetoric.'
Read the full article in TES